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Peer Pressure Porn Filter
Highwayman writes "Wired magazine presents one man's approach to stopping online pr0n 'Instead of relying on filters, the approach, which NetAccountability has been pitching primarily to religious groups, calls for Web users to share records of their online activity. Users pick a friend, spouse or other confidant who receives a regular report showing which sites they visit, highlighting potentially objectionable material.'"
He calls up our University's tech services to report his internet connection sucked. It fixed itself within a few hours. The next day, he gets a call saying that his connection should work now, and that he had visited some "interesting" sites and that the network is for "academic use only", but that they had monitored his activity only because he had complained.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Yep. I know exactly a few people who might be really interested in the sites I visit. ^_^
Besides, I wouldn't have to send them my new "discoveries" (either pr0n or not). They would be able to find those themselves in the wad of stuff I visit.
One objection, though. Suppose I go visit one site that is so highly objectionnable there is even a virus in the site. Would that mean I would automatically infect people whom I trust because they too will go look at that site? Nice!
"Don't go visit Goatse! It's a virus! Yeah, I tell ya!"
Mike
There is always a way to hide your smut surfing. These solutions are aimed at people that want freedom from this addiction by getting help from friends that understand the issue or were once addicted themselves.
Just like with any 12 step program, you have to be willing to come to the meeting. For this app, you have to be willing to set up the accountability with a friend(s).
robi
Friends of mine actually use software like this; I would, as well, if I had a net connection at home.
The basic idea is "Install this when you are clear-headed and have moral convictions, and let it guide you in the moments of passion." Or something like that.
The programs that I have seen tie into or replace WINSOC, so there really isn't a convinient way to bork the system. Yeah, for those of us in the know, we could get around it, but the average guy can't, and even the average computer guy would have to put some serious effort into it.
The programs automatically generate and send a report on a regular basis, and this is transparent to the user. There is no "Click here to let your firemds know that you've been browsing younglove.com," it just quietly sends an email.
Actually, I think you will find a number of church officials requiering that those in their employ install such software. Couldn't hurt.
Thomas Galvin
What is equally distrubing is that these are probably the same people that think the rest of us have the same problem and must be saved from ourselves. They lobby to get laws passed because "someone must watch over us" to protect us from ourselves.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
addiction... I hate how carelessly that word gets thrown around these days.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
why would someone willingly subject themselves to this? I mean, we're all human, we all have urges, and if any of us have gone out and looked at pr0n somewhere, how does that make us a bad person?
First off, there is the standard religious view that lust is bad. One of the best, if not only, ways of dealing with lust is to stop feeding it. The internet makes it very easy to feed lust; this makes it much easier to resist it.
Secondly, take a walk through google sometime and look for the various studies on porn and psychology. Pornography addictions tend to create feelings of unworthiness, self-hatred, "dirtiness," etc. There are many, many people who generally want to stop using pornography, but cannot. Accountability is key in these situations. The point of these programs is not to catch someone red-handed, but to help them stay accountable, and to improve themselves.
Also, consider the emotional and relationship issues. I've talked with seveal women who found out that their husbands were using, or even addicted to, pornography. To the person, they felt that they were not attractive enough to please their husbands, that they had done something wrong, that they couldn't trust their spouse... pornography has the potential to do great harm to an otherwise healthy marriage.
Finally, consider that a great deal of the women invloved in the porn industry have histories of sexual abuse, and the emotioanl problems that entails... do you really want to take advantage of that situation for a few moments of pleasure?
Thomas Galvin
Nearly everyone who has posted so far as missed the point... pornography is a very real concern for many Christian men. Most of the world doesn't consider "lust" to bad at all... however, I think it can be incredibly destructive. Looking at pornography is a subtle form of adultery, whether you'd like to admit it or not. That being said, the Internet has an unlimited supply of porn that is available 24/7, and accessing it is completely anoymous. It is very easy to fall into this temptation, and it's very easy to become addicted to it. Please don't try to dispute this... just because *you* happen to see no problem with porn doesn't mean countless people have had real struggles with it. This program is designed for the person who wants to break an addictive cycle through accountibility, which is the basis for 12-step programs and other generally accepted methods for breaking addition. I'm really glad that someone has taken initiative to provide this kind of help.
Heaven help you if while using this service you are looking to catch a bus to visit some relatives. You mistakenly type www.greyhond.com (POPUP WARNING)....instead of www.greyhound.com.
My, what your friend or loved one will think of you...
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Just join a club to form a
- whitelist - stuff that's definitely OK to see
- blacklist - stuff that's definitely not OK to see
- graylist - stuff that's outside the known universe
to define your own internet experience. Sounds like a great idea to me.Think of the possibilities, too. The anti-matter folks and the matter folks can help each other with their respective lists.
Some of the pr0n viewing crowd can join the Moral Majority Virtual web but just set (white=black and black=white) and everyone wins.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I found this out when I was teaching intermediate macroeconomics at Vanderbilt University. Being an expensive private university, the adminstration has made a real fetish out of teaching evaluations. Several times I noticed in the "anonymous" but handwritten evaluations that students who had poor attendance indicated that my lectures were disgorganized. (Yeah, I see the causality problem, but I really didn't think the lectures were disorganized, but they do build on each other.) So I decided to take attendance at every class, by passing around a sign up sheet. Attendance did not count towards the students' grades, but just the fact that I kept a record increased attendance. I asked a few students about this, and without prompting from me, they said that just knowing that it was written down somewhere that they hadn't been to class made them more likely to come.
& it did seem to improve my evaluations as well. I know that college students are supposed to be adults, and shouldn't need this kind of psychological trick, blah-blah-blah, but it worked, and in academia the moral high ground is occupied exclusively by tenured professors.
Interestingly enough, years later I read a great book on business management written a Buddhist monk who worked in the diamond industry (The Diamond Cutter by Geshe Michael Roach) that suggests simply keeping track of errors, with no actual or implied punishments, will reduce the number of errors dramatically. The book is very interesting --- I reccommend it highly.
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
Not that I know anyone into THAT stuff (except maybe a priest), but I might know some hardware tinkerers that may have ordered a mod chip at some point.
David Brin is a big proponent of a "transparent society" in which everyone is watched by someone else. Although it has its pros and cons, this sort of software is a great tool for such a society. Amusingly, it's being used by conservatives while at the same time creating a society proposed by a liberal idealist.
As many posters have suggested, adult entertainment is not a problem in itself. But it is when a teenager steals a credit card and runs up many tens of thousands of dollays in debt! This kind of software is good because you get to pick someone that you trust (maybe an aunt, an uncle or a friend) and allow them to offer a second perspective on things that you do. Too many people are isolated from others and never learn to question their own actions.
If everyone's actions were known to someone else, our country would operate a lot more smoothly. Imagine making a small change to this software: Your actions are summarized for someone else to view, but anonymously. They can opt to suggest to you that you might benefit from help if they think that what you are doing is unusual. You can ignore it, but a reality check might help a lot of people, even if it's just a link to finding free porn instead of paying a ton of cash for it.
-Elentar
The wheel it turns, around and around, with an ancient rumbling sound.
There was a study done a while back, and I'm... aha, found it. Avedon Carol, in "nudes, prudes and attitudes", references a study.
"When Goldstein found that *all* of the rapists in his study sample had been punished for looking at pornography, while a mere 7 per cent of his cohort sample had been, that set off alarm bells for anyone who really cared about the causes of sexual violence."
Religion is a much bigger threat to women than porn ever could be, on many, many levels.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
A moral system that glorifies a sociopathic, genocidal tyrant that's all too willing to use orbital bombardment on two bronze age cities, saving only the family that was willing to grovel to him sufficiently.... and that is also willing to drown an entire PLANET simply because the inhabitants of said planet weren't grovelling to him sufficiently... is beneath my contempt.
Grow UP humans!
There's something most christians don't seem to understand. Believing porn is evil and immoral is a fringe belief now. I see all these posts from people who are so shocked that so many people are lampooning this site. You can still have your fringe belief and believe everyone else is wrong, and your small group is right (it worked for Galileo and Newton for instance), but you shouldn't be at all surprised when everyone else laughs at you. Please try to get some perspective outside of your christian community.
AccountKiller
" I've talked with seveal women who found out that their husbands were using, or even addicted to, pornography. To the person, they felt that they were not attractive enough to please their husbands, that they had done something wrong, that they couldn't trust their spouse... pornography has the potential to do great harm to an otherwise healthy marriage."
that is about trust and communication, not porn.
if they feel they have done something wrong, perhaps the should talk top there husbands about it. I mean, I hate to sound crazy, but wouldn't it be worth a try?
Very few women will want to have sex as often as a man will, so looking at porn to fire one off might be better then either forcing there wife to plaese you, or be all grouchy because they need some relief.
not to say people can't get addicted to porn, they can. However looking at porn doesn't make you a bad person.
*porn being consentual sex between to adults.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Interesting. I would assume you would install it when your mind was clouded by guilt and shame. This reminds me of two quotes from St. Augustine-
"Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." [everyone's favorite]
and
"Love and do what you will"
But I am a Jew so, what do I know?
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Dudes - I think this rocks. I mean think of all the problems in the Catholic Church - Enron - etc. Accountability is just a basic ingredient for integrity. Chuck Swindoll is one of the most sincere and "real" ministers out there. He's not preachy - was a marine years ago - seems to really care about helping people. Just great to see a solution that uses friendships and a non-censorship approach. Life is short - integrity is something we all strive for.
Dr. Laura is Jewish. In her mind, the NT doesn't apply. Those OT verses do. So Dear Dr. Laura is valid.
Not exactly - I wish this had been around a year ago... I had a pretty bad problem with porn - I was lying to my family/friends, living with no respect for my fiance, and it was also affecting my job and personal life. I guess you would say I had the classic signs of an addiction.
I delt with the temptation other ways, and things are looking much better for me now. However, if this had been around I'd have gladly paid triplr what they're asking for it. The accountability alone is priceless (please, don't confuse self-imposed accountability with 'guilt' - would you call AA meetings "guilt tools"?), and taking this step could have helped build trust between my fiance and I in a caring, loving, and compassionate way.
Yeah, I'm posting as an AC here - I'm not ready to share my story with everyone, but I thought I'd give a different perspective on this.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I think this is a great idea, and I'm surprised it hasn't been done before. I constantly hear people complain about filters, especially about how they do not filter as reasonably as a human would. Well, this solves that problem. We're always telling parents that they need to look after their children and what they are watching, and this is a perfect tool to do that. Its other use, using it to make yourself accountable as opposed to children, seems a little weird, but I can see where it could be useful. And besides, it's opt-in, so what's the big problem? Sounds like a great product. Not that I'll be signing up for it anytime soon. . . .
So, do you have to ask "Where's the harm"?
I know that looking at porn doesn't cause marriages to fail, granted, but it is a symptom of something that *DOES*. And at the very least, if you eliminate that particular symptom, you do stand to slow down the deterioration process a bit, and maybe the couple can get help before they end up duking it out in court over which parent's house the kids end up living at most of the time.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Look at it this way.
As a parent, I allow my children to use the computer. I do, however, place it in the house where there is a lot of traffic and I can keep an eye on what they are doing without interrupting them.
This is a Good Thing(TM). Accountability, in general, is a good thing.
You may not agree with the application of this technology, but why disparage it here? If you feel pornography is a good thing then you can enjoy it yourself.
I, however, feel that pornography has many bad consequences. I know this from personal experience. Who are you to disparage my personal experience, my morals, convictions, values and beliefs? Pornography, just like gambling, drinking, drugs, computer hardware, computer games, MMORPGs, etc can be addictive. These addictions can change you and your life significantly. If you like those changes, or it doesn't change you, or you don't notice the change, then good for you. But don't hate the technology or the people who use it for themselves.
-Adam
An idea is a precious and fragile thing. Don't hate ideas. Hate people.
They always supported legalism with (often Biblical) appeals to morality. Just like the Pharisees once did, but without all the diligent study. Why lead a church body when you can simply control it?
Iron does sharpen iron, until they start making paper contracts governing how it should be conducted (I kid you not). The software (while good in-and-of itself) could be a natural extension of their legalism. It would start with the staff, then trickle down through the hierarchy with lots of judgmentalism towards anyone who didn't elevate themselves to that standard of accountability.
I'll let you have the last word on this thread.
I put the 'fun' in fundamentalism
Your answer to exploitation in the sex industry is OSHA and a labor union? What's your answer to child abuse? Applying Six Sigma techniques to leather belt manufacturing?
What should be obvious to anyone with half a brain cell, is that one of the many differences between the sex industry and child abuse is that one is an industry who's participants have consented to participate (except where lack of regulation of the industry, or overregulation of the consumers of it's product, have created conditions for abuse) and the other is a crime commited uppon helpless non-consenting children.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
> To me the problem is it seems kinda creepy that you'd need the threat of shame from your friends or family to not do something you consider morally abhorent.
It's no surprise that so many sects with tight moral constraints and/or inflexible doctrine are based on strong personal associations between their adherents, including (but not limited to) regular assemblies of the group's members.
What I wonder is whether that kind of social engineering was designed in by those groups' founders, or whether it is simply the outcome of "survival of the fittest" - i.e., whether the groups that didn't practice social engineering were more likely to disintegrate over the centuries.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This sounds like an honest question, so I will answer it honestly.
;) brain activity goes nuts. Also note that the more porn you see, the "harder" porn you need to get that same response... Sound familiar? So for a non-trivial number of people, Porn is a effectively a drug that they abuse. Just like alcohol, or pot, or other moderatly powerful drugs (drugs that are psychologically addictive and not necessarily chemically addictive).
:) ).
Accountability rocks. The trick is to find commited like minded friends that genuinely care about you, and you invest in each others lives.
I can tell them "I want to spend more time with my children, I know that I am missing out on a huge part of life and will regret it when they grow up, but I am really struggling with making the time to spend time with them, and need your help doing it"
These people, if they really are good accountability partners, will ask you every week how you are doing. They will probe and try to understand the real reasons you might be struggling with it, help you track your progress, give you outside perspectives, give you suggestions based on their own experience that would help, lots of real help to making real progress on important issues. They will refer you to professional help if it looks like that is necessary, or just help remind you of what you know is important when you don't feel like you have the energy to do it.
So thats the accountability component of it. Ask any recovering alchoholic. God / AA based programs have like an 8 times higher success rates then non God non accountable programs. These things really work.
The reason people might consider porn bad is a different question I will address seperately...
First of all, it is not a big stretch to assume it requires the exploitation of women. It is generally legal and it is a free country where people can do stupid things to themselves whenever they want, so it *would* be a stretch to say it should be illegal. But there are a lot of legal things that are distasteful, that people may decide they don't want to support it or be a part of. That does not mean they aren't tempted by it or don't want it, it means they believe it does more damage then good (to themselves and others) in the long run.
Porn is something that gives you momentary and intense stimulation of a pleasure center... it hits like a drug, just monitor the body responses of somebody that is not sensitized to it when they see it. Heart rate goes through the roof, skin flushes, things swell
(footnote... that gives me a laugh, I remember from high school health class circa 1983 that they described cocaine as "non addictive" because it lacked some of the chemical ramifications of heroin and morphene... What total and utter bullsh*t... just look at the effect crack (concentrated and cheap cocaine) has had on the inner cities, and you tell me it is not addictive)....
Anyway, another reason porn is destructive is obvious if you think about it. Imagine you are having sex with your favorite supermodel. It would be great, right? OK, now imagine you are having sex with someone who is totally unattractive to you, both in looks, in personality, they smell bad, they say rude things, they insult you and abuse you and disrespect you in every way. The physical sensations are not a lot different between the two scenarios, but there is a HUGE difference in the way your brain translates those sensations to actual perceptions of pleasure.
So there is a HUGE psychological component to the degree to which you enjoy sex. And pornography (as well as premarital, or non monogamous sex) wreaks havoc with that whole mechanisim, it really pollutes it and messes up the whole system. When I was in college, I could not find a person that would agree with me. Now, at the age of 37, I can't find a person that would disagree with me. Ignore me at your peril.
And as for this particular product, it has it's place. I could bypass it in about a minute, but even among the technical friends I have, not many could unless I told them a couple tricks.
And internet porn is a bigger problem then other porn. It is in my house, waiting for me at 2 in the morning when I had a fight with my wife, or a terrible day at work, or one too many beers. The AA guys have a great acronym... HALT (hungry angry lonely tired). If you are any two of these things, your risk of abuse of a self destructive behaviour goes through the roof! I don't have to get dressed, go out in the car, and go somewhere and buy it and bring it back... it is totally anonymous, and there is effectively NO obstacle between me and internet porn. Maybe 20 keystrokes, thats it.
I doubt anyone will read this, but there is an honest answer to the question.
If black, Jews, or Asians were treated with the same bigotry and contempt that Christians are treated here on Slashdot....... But I told myself I was not going to go there... where is that (bite my toungue emoticon
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
Actually Jesus was setting out a rigid hierarchy of right in wrong. So rigid that t is impossible for us to achieve - these are God's standards and without being perfect, we can't hope to achieve them. the point is that we can't trust in ourselves for salvation - we have to trust in God, ask forgiveness from him. As a loving God, he offers forgiveness to everyone. Mother Teressa needs it as much as Hitler did and God would be just as willing to forgive Hitler as her. Or me. Or you.
Okay, so if the "indiscretion" (emphasis yours) wasn't the actual cause of the breakup, then what was? Was the pornography the cause or just a symptom? Did the wife stop offering sex? Was the abuser exposed to abuse as a child? Did the abuse start after the pornography, or before?
Viewing pornography to the exclusion of other life activities is unhealthy, just as watching television, running model trains or going to the gym to the exclusion of normal life activities is unhealthy.
So, do you have to ask "Where's the harm?"
Hey, I know of five marriages that broke up in the past couple of years. Two of those cases involved the circumstance of the men breathing. I think the conclusion that breathing contributed to the issue cannot be denied.
I know that looking at porn doesn't cause marriages to fail, granted, but it is a symptom of something that *DOES*. And at the very least, if you eliminate that particular symptom, you do stand to slow down the deterioration process a bit, and maybe the couple can get help before they end up duking it out in court over which parent's house the kids end up living at most of the time.
I'm sure that just taking cough syrup can get rid of that annoying symptom of pneumonia, too. Excessive pornography (if more than the "norm" that 90% of men subscribe to) is, like you said, a symptom, and forcing a man to abandon that only outlet instead of treating the problem might make the decline happen much more quickly.
my alma matter *spits on ground* We had to go to sex ed seminars where former students (now in what appeared to be sexless marriages) told us to "save" ourselves. I mean we were 20 year olds for Christ's sake! Instead of practical, realistic discussion we were exhorted never to get "horizontal" or go on non group dates. It just seemed so pathetic and stupid. And judging by my peer's pregnancy rates woefully ineffective. I think schemes like the one shown here will be just about as effective.
Sorry about the rant. I guess I was just commiserating with you.
It is not enough to succeed, others must fail. - Gore Vidal
- Robert Heinlein, 1907-1988
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
I'm a Christian and have Christian friends. Perhaps to you porn isn't a problem, but for some people (myself included) it's a moral issue.
As an employer, I don't filter or spy, and I probably won't do this either. But, for employers that are tempted, isn't this a great alternative? If you're married, a report of your web activities will be mailed to your spouse. No filters that will screw up and keep out legitimate sites; no employer spyware.
The only problem (as identified by my wife): "What if you wanted to buy me a present online?"
Their privacy policy:
We will never share personal information about you or your surfing habits unless our withholding of this information would violate a specific request by a local, state, or federal authority.
So anybody with a governmental letterhead can get your info.
How they do it:
The only requirement is that the network administrator open the firewall port 41974, for outbound connections.
You'd think they could just send a mail message once in a while, but no...
Their terms and conditions:
NetAccountability may, in its sole discretion, change, modify, add or remove portions of the NetAccountability application and the services available with respect to the NetAccountability application or this license at any time without notice.
Coming soon, adware, spyware, what?
thats being ignored in this discussion so far (at least I haven't seen it in any of the highly moderated posts) and that is the difference between "guilt" and "accountability". Guilt or shame is something that most Christians I know would discourage, because it is self-dustructive. There's no use in obsessing over your sin. Even so, if we are honest with ourselves, we realise that each of us ar flawed (i.e. we have room for improvement, we have "fallen short" of the perfect mark). And that is perfectly reasonable because we are all human after all, but do we kick back and say, "well that's life" or do we strive for something better?
Accountability is not about guilt. Its almost the opposite, as a matter of fact, because guilt makes people hide -- accountability is about finding someone you can trust who will be your confident so you don't have to hide anymore. You can have someone, a real live human -- better if its someone you know well, not just a box or a screen or a program with some mysterious listener bihind -- who can share your struggle and help encourage to strive for that something better.
It is very painful for me to read some of these posts that say, "if you don't like it then just stop" because its just not that easy. And then they say, well if you can't stop then just accept that its ok. To which I must say for extended periods I pretty much did accept it as ok and the result was a life-wasting habit that ate up to 7 hours of each day (almost as bad as slashdot). To which they reply, "well you have to learn self-control buddy". But ask every person I know, self-control is not one of my major flaws in any other area. And porn was never a problem for me until I crossed that threshold a year ago. I can only say, from experience mind you -- not because some preacher said so, or because my mammy made a face when billy used a word when I was five -- that for me this is something I want to rid myself of, that this is not something I can do myself, and that methods like this help immensly if they are done right. Accountability is about building positive relationships and that, I think, is the intent of this program.
I work at a high school as a sys admin. Anyway, we occasionally have kids who arent too smart, dont disable proxy logging, and then decide to go surfing the net for pr0n. The most effective tool we have ever had for eliminating porn use is something very simple and maybe partially legal. We find the log, call the student end and give them two options. They can either be suspended for a week for intentionally looking at pornography, or they can call their mother and tell them what they were looking at. They must call them, tell them they were doing bad stuff, then list off the sites that they visited and were poking around. Yeah, it really works. Really really well.
NetAccountability works. I picked a buddy - downloaded the app on a couple machines (no additional fee). My wife and I talked about this - she can see my reports as well. (accountability partners are free) Good stuff. I talked with the ministry - they have 24/7 counseling and a vision for really helping protect families. Very family-oriented. Customer support is good. No linux or MAC version... I'll share more as I experience it... Noah